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"I spend more time here than I do actually playing games."
-
Noijd Svensonson (mitte)

In my experience: no. - There are some wicked combos with having property- there are cards that allow you to lower the value of a house considerably; together with the possibility to alter the market, that makes for an excellent way to waste money fast

the player who avoids buying houses will win, thus calling the game imbalanced. Is this true?

I just played a game in which I avoided buying property and got well thrashed by someone who did. It all depends on the combination of cards you put together. My plan to concentrate on carriage-bonuses backfired when I failed to draw events that needed carriages. That's life!

last night i got the steward that allows green activations without paying actions. i got two farms. i got the card that puts down 2 horse tokens for free. i got the training ground that costs you $ for horses/farms. and then i spent a zillion pounds going hunting and training for 2 or 3 turns.

i sold 'em off at inflated rates and went broke in turn 5.

i think property is harder to do but can be very fast and nasty if you can combo it well.

Games where you start with lots of money, property is a good investment. When you only start with $70 like in the "intro" game, you might only actually run your property twice before you run out of money and have to sell the property back again, which feels like a waste.

My latest game had a player with 3 Waiters and 3 Reservations, spending an automatic $20+ a turn without using any actions, and then using actions to go to Dinner to spend another $6+ per action

Games where you start with lots of money, property is a good investment. When you only start with $70 like in the "intro" game, you might only actually run your property twice before you run out of money and have to sell the property back again, which feels like a waste.

There is the problem that novices may make mistakes with property management, for example by buying too many expensive ones. If you have too many expensive properties, you have to start selling them sooner, and then you have to consume that selling price without the assistance of the sold properties. Also, properties which require maintenance compete with each other (and other action-requiring things) for your action quota. Too many properties are inherently inefficient (except for those which depreciate down to a very cheap price), although of course this can be overcome by the right combo cards. Yet one can usually make good use of one or two (unless one is too busy with some other combo).

One needs to understand that the price of a property is a kind of cost, because of the endgame rule. But this mechanism is unfamiliar, so not everyone will understand it right away (unlike money cost in most other games, where you simply have the money to pay for it or not). Also novice players may not understand inherent inefficiency: for example if you get many farms, they compete for your animal cards (without giving you any use for any people cards you draw) and your actions for maintenance, so that is inherently inefficient (which can be overcome by the right combo cards, but only if you have those).

last night i got the steward that allows green activations without paying actions. i got two farms. i got the card that puts down 2 horse tokens for free. i got the training ground that costs you $ for horses/farms. and then i spent a zillion pounds going hunting and training for 2 or 3 turns.

i sold 'em off at inflated rates and went broke in turn 5.

i think property is harder to do but can be very fast and nasty if you can combo it well.

Yup... seen this combo myself! it's hella nasty and if you can get it out quick, it's a 5 turn game ender. There are other combos though that work for not putting out property, like taking the two free action cards (if they come out in turn one and two), pairing them with the multiple action card + 4 actions turn spot to use up the dinner party - you can do this twice if you plan ahead and take lots of white cards at the beginning to find the other dinner party in the deck. There is half your money (at least) gone in two turns - nearly all by turn 5.

Many ways to victory - it's like all games similar in nature - card combinations are key to success. However, its also partially based on the card order that comes up from shuffling as well!! If you don't draw the correct cards, waiting on a combination can lose the win easily - especially if someone is working on a combo that is falling into place based on the draw.

I've only played three times... once with 120 pounds to start. All three games, people with property fell to dinner/coach combos with very few actions involved.

Did they mis-play the property game? One probably shouldn't lay down more than two (and preferably fewer than two) action-requiring activations than he has free actions. In other words, one with no free actions should not play a third action-requiring activation, and probably not even a second unless it is a really juicy combo.